eye for an eye

conservativecave ^ | May 22, 2009 | franksolich

[franksolich]

I went over to TxRadioGuy's hometown forum, to see an argument ongoing there, about how enemy combatants should be treated.

And as usual, there's a primitive mucking up a passage ostensibly from the Bible, but which actually goes back much further than that (Christ was saying it as then-ancient history).

This "eye for an eye" bit.

I have no idea why that's considered a bad thing.

Of course, it's considered a bad thing because it's always misinterpreted.

[franksolich]

I hope this is of interest; I've always, personally, really disliked famous quotes being misinterpreted.

[franksolich]

Sort of a ping for the list.

[Brett66]

Does he mean that we should put them in a building and slam a jetliner into it so they can burn to death?

We have more economical methods of dispatching them......

[Zionist Conspirator]

The several passages in the Torah that mandate `ayin tachat `ayin, shen tachat shen ("eye for eye, tooth for tooth," etc.) are interpreted and explicated in the authoritative Oral Tradition which Moses received from G-d on Mt. Sinai. Its true interpretation is that someone who has caused someone to lose an eye, tooth, limb, etc., must recompense the victim with a monetary amount equivalent to the lost organ/limb.

Never in Jewish history has it been interpreted any differently. Jewish courts have never plucked out eyes or teeth, etc.

[Sherman Logan]

Christ was quoting Moses, or anyway his Law, not Hammurabi. Exodus 20 or so, if I remember corrrectly. Hammurabi came well before the Mosaic Law, so in all likelihood the use of the term in the Law was restating a commonplace of Middle Eastern legal systems.

I’ve also never quite understood why the lex talionis is considered so savage. Exactly what is unjust about forcing the perp to suffer the same injury he intentionally inflicted on another person? Since the perp is a guilty person and the victim was innocent, strict justice might even require greater injury being done to “even things up.”

The Law, BTW, applied this principle only to violent crimes. There was none of the hand-chopping for property crimes so popular in sharia.

[franksolich]

Well, essentially that’s what it means.

Not strictly an eye for an eye, but for the thief to recompense his one-eyed victim for the harm done him.

[Auntie Mame]

Very interesting. I didn’t know this.